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Chapter 6: Burn My Dread

Nightly dance of bleeding swords reminds me that I still live.

The girl with a flawed existence felt a slight breeze against her cheeks. When she finally opened her eyes, she found a richly colored and vibrant world around her. Dazed, and confused, she looked to the sky above her and watched the clouds silently float by. It was rather calming, simply lying on the grass like that. But she knew that she had to get moving or she would never find the one person special to her. However, in order to get to where he was, she had to know wherever she was.

"Just where am I?" she asked.

She looked around, but found nothing more than fields and hills of grass and flowers with the small forests that dotted the landscape. The amounts of bright color that filled her line of vision were almost blinding.

"Who are you?" the girl asked. "Do I know you?"

"Alas, you do not know me, but you shall!" the bird replied. "My name is Owl, a resident of these 100 Acre Woods. I remember when my forefathers had first arrived here in this wond'rous land…"

Owl proceeded to explain much more, but the girl didn't listen due to lack of interest. She instead looked at the purple flower and, after some time passed, plucked it from the ground and stared at it intently.

"It appears that you, my young lady, are confused," Owl stated with an unexplainable exuberance. "Perhaps that is because it is rather unsightly to hold a conversation like this out here! If you shall follow me to my home, I'd be happy to carry on!"

The girl nodded slightly and struggled to get up. Her legs felt numb and her feet felt were as heavy as cinderblocks. Nevertheless, she stood up and began to walk. She didn't know where she was, why she was there, and why she was talking to a bird, but all she knew is that she wanted to be with her friends. That longing seemed to be the only thing to keep her going.

In Riku's heart, there was always a deep fear that he would return to the darkness.

(No one's truly rid of it forever,) Riku would think to himself from time to time.

Despite the fact that he was practically sandwiched by how energetic and enthusiastic Sora and Kairi were back on Destiny Islands, he couldn't help but think of the worst possible scenario. Maybe the Dark Firaga he accidentally fired at Hibari was an indication of what was to come. What if he woke up one morning to find slicked back hair and a twisted smile in his reflection? What if he closed his eyes and found Xehanort's heartless there, waiting to take control of his heart again? These stupid things panicked him endlessly and gave him many a sleepless night.

However, Riku slept well the night he met Demyx, despite the paranoia he was plaguing himself with.

Riku opened his eyes to find the standard blue sky with the occasional white and wispy cloud to float along. The sounds of gulls cawing overhead and waves crashing almost gave reason for the silverette to believe that he was still in the world of Destiny Islands, protecting the peace that they had. Unfortunately for the keybearer, he realized that the sound of waves crashing was too loud for him to be either at his home on the mainland or at the special island where he, Sora, and Kairi spent their time. Groaning, he rubbed his drowsy eyes and sat up.

"It's too damn quiet for Ryohei and Demyx to still be here…" Riku said to himself as he looked around. Sighing, he jumped onto his feet and took a moment to inhale the ocean breeze. "Where the hell did they go?"

A shadow loomed overhead, which Riku immediately noticed. The keybearer stepped backwards and shielded his eyes against the small sandstorm that was whipped up due to the impact of whatever fell. After seeing the outline of a humanlike figure, said figure instantly started trying to punch Riku. Luckily, the keybearer instinctively dodged each blow by stepping either to the side or backwards.

"EXTREME HIGH SPEED BARRAGE!" Ryohei shouted at the top of his lungs.

Riku's limbs tensed up as he realized just how sharp Ryohei's punches could be. As he instinctively dodged the punches, the keybearer could feel the air rushing past his ears with each missed attack. He narrowly ducked and dodged the blows, the boxer using the momentum of the last to swing instantly into the next. The keybearer's shoes dug into the sand as he continually stepped back, only to back up into the rocky cliff behind him. Riku's eyes widened as he realized that he was about to be flattened by Ryohei's nest punch. Without any delay, he summoned his keyblade and blocked the boxer's punch with the broad side of the weapon.

"That won't stop me!" Ryohei yelled furiously. He furrowed his eyebrows before calling out, "MAXIMUM CANNON!"

Fearing the worst, Riku forced Ryohei back with the keyblade. He grit his teeth as Ryohei reeled his fist back. Time suddenly started to slow down for Riku, and the only thing he could hear would be his heartbeat. Riku was about to leap to the side, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boxer's fist suddenly went to the side, barely missed Riku's cheek and embedded itself into the rocky cliff behind the keybearer. Riku looked back behind him and found a crater that had a radius several meters wide. Acknowledging that his skull could've been a part of that, Riku gulped loudly, but then looked back at Ryohei as he took his fist out of the cliff.

"Those were some EXTREME reflexes!" Ryohei shouted, as if there was nothing wrong with dropping out of the sky and punching away at your ally. "Hey! If you could go back to my world, you should join the EXTREME BOXING CLUB! A guy with reflexes like yours could easily go far in the ring!"

Riku placed an exasperated hand to an equally exasperated forehead, but not before looking at the small amount of blood seeping out of the scratch on Riku's cheek that was inflicted by Ryohei's Maximum Cannon. "S-So…you just wanted to test me on how fast I could dodge your attacks? Good grief…" Riku ran a hand through his hair. (At least Sora takes the time to ask me before sparring…)

A ghastly sound reached Riku's ears, but a few seconds later, it occurred to him that it was his stomach growling. "Ryohei, is Demyx getting us food? I don't see him anywhere."

Ryohei nodded. "I bet he's going to get us an EXTREME BREAKFAST!"

Riku decided not to entertain the thought of what an extreme breakfast would even look like, much less taste like. He hoped it wouldn't be spicy. "Well, it would be useless to just wait here. Let's go help Demyx out."

After Ryohei complied, he told Riku that the nocturne went to the nearby village for food. "But…walking there would be rather uneventful! Let's run there! TO THE EXTREME!" He pulled out his box with unequalled enthusiasm and was close to pressing his ring into it, however, he stopped. Hearing something distant, his eyes lost their energetic gleam and soon became filled with anxiety. "What is it?"

"I heard it too," Riku replied. He summoned his keyblade and gripped it tightly before rushing forward with the boxer right behind him.

The sound was faint and both of them could barely hear it, but it surely was there. The sounds started to come together in frequency, and it changed volume and pitch. After realizing this, Riku concluded that it had to be a musical instrument, and one with strings. The song that he was hearing sounded beautiful, but several notes seemed like they shouldn't be there, signifying that the musician was in a frantic situation and simply couldn't concentrate.

"Hi guys!" Demyx turned towards their direction with a pleasantly surprised smile. "Aren't these guys, adora—OW!"

The musician strummed away at his instrument, summoning beings of water in his shape. The translucent, aquatic entities were surrounded by a faint rain flame, and were much faster than Riku had expected. They swiped at the Heartless rather weakly, but they still managed to do some decent damage. The Heartless were only of the pint-sized variety like Tornado Steps, Rabid Dogs, and a few varieties of plant Heartless, which meant that the water clones would only get hit if they stood exactly still. With them being natural dancers, there were no casualties. The Heartless were a piece of cake and complete pushovers to Riku, but Ryohei simply jumped in and punched away.

"Any enemies, no matter how small, need to be dealt with MAXIMUM POWER!" Ryohei slammed into his fist into a nearby Icy Cube Heartless. With an unexpected "SQUEAK," the creature dissipated and left the captive heart to fly away into sky. "One down!"

Riku was bored with such a simple predicament and found it rather sad that Demyx was so frailly behaved in battle. That said, the keybearer slowly made his way over to where Demyx was frantically playing his instrument. Whenever a small Heartless got into his line of vision, he would dismally hit it on the head with the dull end of the keyblade and move on. The whole thing seemed like a lifeless version of Whack-A-Mole. When he got to Demyx's location, he simply observed Demyx's reactions.

"Th-that hurts, you know! Ouch! And I don't have a heart for you to take—that doesn't tickle!—because I'm a nobody!" Demyx shrieked with worry. The blonde's lack of self-control led to his playing getting noticeably sloppy quite often and making his water clones miss a step and consequently having one or two return to their original state as water vapor. "I don't want to do this! I should've just run away when I had the chance!"

"Then why didn't you?" Riku asked as he set his keyblade into the sand. "It would be simple to just run away from the Heartless."

For once, Demyx calmed down, but then he also stopped playing his instrument. "Well, they keep coming after me no matter how far I run away!"

Ryohei quickly finished up the last of the Heartless and pumped his fist in the air in triumph. Riku half-expected Ryohei to lash out at the two of them for skipping out in the last minute, but then figured that it served no negative purpose and gave the boxer more of a fulfilling workout. Riku then turned to Demyx and asked sternly.

"Earlier, you stated that they would just respawn, right?"

"Er…yeah?" Demyx scratched the back of his head. "Respawn means to come back, right?"

"Then, they only stopped once Ryohei and I got here," Riku continued, ignoring Demyx's pointing out the obvious. "That's odd, considering that my keyblade could act as a beacon of sorts for the Heartless. If they did something that's against their nature, then that means someone is controlling them." Riku observed Demyx's crestfallen expression and Ryohei's impatient look with crossed arms. "Earlier, we were scattered by someone messing with the box portal program, and now, they attacked us while we were scattered."

"But…it wouldn't make sense for you to not be attacked while I was! That's no fair!" Demyx shouted in anguish.

"Perhaps they were gauging your strength," Riku suggested. "It would make sense. Given that you just so happened to be in the same location we would be in, it would make sense to get a good estimate of your abilities and see if you would be a spanner in the works. If they do that, enemies like that of Organization XIII, could just find, fight, and then simply capture us."

"Organization XIII is most certainly our enemy!" Ryohei shouted as he clenched a fist. "It doesn't matter if they fight us! I'll beat them down with my EXTREME SPIRIT! Ambush or not, if we keep up an EXTREME SPIRIT, then we'll be able to overcome anything!"

"…Err…well, we need to find a way to get to a different world. The important thing is that we need to find everyone and stick together. Strength in numbers is an important factor in a crisis like this," Riku continued, trying to ignore Ryohei. The grating voice was tugging at his patience remorselessly. He then looked to Demyx.

"Wha—I can't come up with a portal! You've got to be kidding me! I guess when I…escaped…I couldn't use the darkness…anymore…" Demyx's voice slowed. He looked out to the distance, as if sensing something. Without warning, he took his sitar and ran out towards the shore. The musician may have been wearing a mask, but no matter how one looked at it, he had look of pure determination on his face, far surpassing any expectations the two snowcapped boys behind him had. "You two hear it too, right?"

The boys looked at each other and shrugged, but they nonetheless got their weapons ready.

Demyx said in a voice only slightly higher than a whisper, "It's the sound of someone screaming."

And at that, the earth shook with such tremendous force that it knocked all three of them to the ground.

It wasn't long after that all three of them saw two beady yellow eyes peer at them from the towering wall of water, undeniably filled with malice and hunger. A large blue and yellow hornlike appendage poked out from the wave, and proceeded to reveal the rest of its head to the combatants. The beast gave a blood-curdling roar before spreading its wings in an intimidating fashion, immediately causing the tidal wave to disperse, that itself causing a short shower around the beach. The beast surely was a creature to be feared, as its roar was still drowning out the crashing waves of the surf against the jagged rocks surrounding them. The creature had a massive dragon-like appearance, with rough blue and indigo wings, and a sharp, spiked tail.

Even hot-blooded Ryohei was taken aback by its appearance, but he saw the person that Demyx was referring to. In one of the large Heartless's claws was a young girl. However, what caught his eye was that the girl had the scaly tail of a fish from the waist down.

Riku took his keyblade in hand and raised it high above his head. "Thundaga!" the keyblade wielder cried out.

The previously clear sky suddenly turned an ashen gray with clouds floating overhead, and produced an array of lightning that hit the Wavecrest heartless square in the head, causing it to roar out in agony. It temporarily held something of a death glare at Riku before crying out once more and flapping its wings. A tidal wave was slowly approaching the beach that they were on, but it seemed to slow to a halt.

"Don't worry guys!" Demyx assured them with a confident grin plastered on his face. "If it uses any watery attacks, I'll stop them! Just rescue the damsel!" The musician proceeded to skillfully play his instrument without any hitches, and also caused spouts of water to batter the Wavecrest from different directions.

"All right! We're going to do this in an EXTREME FASHION!" Ryohei put his Vongola box and ring together to bring out his box weapon: a female armored kangaroo with boxing gloves, cannons mounted on her back, and golden-yellow sun flames being emitted all over her body. "Let's go, Kangaryu!"

Kangaryu aimed its cannons at Ryohei, and fired two shots in the boxer's direction. The items coated in sun flames latched onto Ryohei's feet, revealing themselves to be boots. After returning Kangaryuu to her box, Ryohei rose up in the air and proceeded to assault the heartless. Ryohei took a nosedive in order to dodge the sweeping motion of the heartless's wing and delivered a focused punch to its underside.

Riku was momentarily surprised about Ryohei's possession of a box animal, but went back to continuing his attack on the Wavecrest. (I have to avoid using a fire spell! Who knows what would happen if I did! I…I just have to play it safe.) Riku jumped up several meters to strike the Wavecrest on its head. The Wavecrest, despite its large size, managed to barely dodge Riku's attack, but the keyblade wielder managed to somersault onto the creature's back. Grinning, Riku was about to slice off the heartless's wing, but caught something in the corner of his eye.

"EXTREME HIGH SPEED ROCKET!"

Ryohei's hardened fist slammed into the curved front of the creature's head, causing it to writhe in agony and thrash about. Riku was thrown off the heartless's back in the ensuing confusion and launched headfirst into the water.

"We really suck as a team…to the extreme—oh wait! Hey, that rhymed!" Demyx murmured to himself as he strummed along on his sitar. His water spouts were damaging the Wavecrest, but not by much, considering that the creature itself was a water-elemental. Both Riku and Ryohei were contact fighters, but Ryohei could easily close the distance with his flying boots, leaving Riku as the only one without a means to easily attack their flying adversary. "But...it's easy for him to use magic, isn't it? Oh, but then, there's the mermaid to consider. We don't want her getting hurt…"

"Demyx! Heads up!"

Demyx frantically looked up and saw the Wavecrest turn all the way around and barely ducked when its tail followed soon after with deadly momentum. The sharp edges of its tail managed to swiftly cut through the very tips of the boy's hair, making Demyx acknowledge that had he not moved sooner, his corpse would've been lying in a pool of his own blood while his detached head would roll off somewhere.

"Wow…that was really close…to the extreme!" Demyx shouted out to no one in particular. One would think that the Heartless didn't hold a candle to the musician, given his easygoing nature in the otherwise heated battle. "Hey, I actually dodged that one, Riku!" The musician energetically waved to the keyblade wielder. After seeing Riku grimace, Demyx proceeded to glare at the Heartless. "We're totally going to kick your ass! That's right!"

Riku put an exasperated hand against an equally exasperated forehead, wishing that Demyx would stop acting like he'd just won a snowball fight. He dodged another swipe of the tail by the Wavecrest and leapt onto it. He ran along the creature's back and quickly slashed through its wing, causing it to thrash about. To avoid the predicament from before, Riku quickly leapt back onto the beach with a smirk.

"Good job, Riku!" Ryohei called out. "Now I can deal the EXTREME finishing blow!"

Ryohei sped forward, about to land a Maximum Cannon punch, until he halted himself and got a good distance away from the monster. The creature simply floated there, with no sign of movement until the wing that was supposedly cut off was regenerated. Undeterred, Ryohei decided to wear it down with less powerful attacks.

Demyx's confident face melted back to one of frustration as he started to raise his right hand, preparing to strum on his sitar. However, something other than terror had taken control of him.

"My arm…" he choked out in a strained voice.

Riku turned his way before dodging another lazy tail swipe from the Wavecrest. "Demyx, what's wrong?"

Demyx's raised arm simply hung there, unmoving. His fingers could only twitch ever so slightly as the musician made pitiful attempts to escape this paralyzed state.

The Wavecrest heartless roared louder than it had done before, which was almost deafening. Then, the tidal wave attack that was thwarted before had resurfaced, heading straight towards the shore at an alarming speed.

"Let's see how you like this!" Riku boasted, raising the keyblade high above his head and shouted, "Thundaga!"

It eventually took Ryohei's blurred speech to reach him before he realized that the attack wouldn't come. With unexpected difficulty, Riku instead pointed the keyblade at the Heartless and then—

FIRAGA.

"Riku! What're you—!" Ryohei managed before he noticed that his sleeves were on fire. After putting them out, he noticed the smoldering wreckage that used to be the Wavecrest Heartless.

The creature was covered head to tail in flames that alternated between indigo and violet, giving the Wavecrest the appearance of an illusion that was starting to fade. However, it was far from that. The translucent flames revealed exposed and bloodied flesh, along with what should be called its skin peeling off, leaving wisps of darkness to intermingle with the flames that produced them. The creature's eyes and mouth gushed out improbable amounts of blood, invading the previously crystal clear water beneath it. The creature and flew in indeterminable patterns, writhing in pain and agony. It's wings reached upward, as if clawing for the sunlight it's atrophied eyes could no longer see.

And Ryohei could hear what Demyx had heard before the battle had started not too long ago. What sounded like a young woman's tortured and agonized screams filled his ears, begging.

KILL ME KILL ME END ALL MY PAIN PLEASE DON'T LET ME SUFFER LIKE THIS IT HURTS KILL ME HELP ME STOP IT MOMMY DADDY MAKE IT STOP KILL ME IT HURTS PLEASE KILL ME NOW PLEASE KILL ME NOW PLEASE KILL ME NOW KILL ME NOW KILL ME NOW KILL ME NOW KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME—

"ZANTETSUKEN!" Riku cried out in a voice as loud as his lungs would allow.

The influx of pained screams stopped abruptly as soon as Riku had swiftly cleaved the monster in two. It was so sudden that it had caught Ryohei off guard when what remained of the creature had crashed into the shore and caused water to go flying everywhere.

"Th-thank God that wasn't blood…" Ryohei stuttered to himself.

The boxer floated to the ground, and walked over to where Riku and Demyx were standing, stock still. Had they heard what he heard?

"Hey, guys—" Ryohei started.

"What the hell was that!" Demyx shouted, distraught and outright confused. "Why did the Heartless do that! It-It's n-never happened before—I mean, WHAT WAS THAT!"

"…" Riku simply stared at the sky, much to his companion's confusion.

"Riku, do you have any idea of what happened right now?" Ryohei struggled to articulate calmly.

Riku stood there for a few moments, watching the clouds above go by, until he blinked a few times, alerting the two to his return to the world. "Wh-what just happened?" He asked them.

"W-We were hoping that you could tell us," Demyx was almost in tears now. "I-I don't know what just happened! It was just terrifying!"

Ryohei was about to concur, but then he spotted a light coming from the "corpse" of the Wavecrest. He alerted the other two to its presence before returning his attention to it. The light was small, but it glowed brilliantly. It then sped over in their direction and hovered in front of Demyx.

"What's happening now?" Demyx asked frantically as he tentatively grabbed it out of the air. He opened his hands to reveal a blue box that was simply designed, with wavelike curves adorning its sides. A small sliver of light had also attached itself to Demyx's middle finger, showing that it came with a matching blue ring. "I-If I wasn't scared out of my boots right now, I'd almost be excited to have this thing…"

Riku was pleasantly surprised at the outcome, but was still troubled over what the hell had just happened. The keyblade master looked over at the "corpse" once more, taking a long time before finally spotting a weak, almost nonexistent light. Examining it further, he realized that it was a heart. It flew up in the air, spinning slowly until…

"WHAT!" Riku shouted in anger and confusion.

The heart started to shake violently, until wisps of darkness started to claw at it. It wrapped around the heart, almost suffocating it, until barely visible jagged white cracks lined its surface. Then, like glass, it shattered into pieces before disappearing altogether.

"No…it can't be!" Riku shouted once more. "W-We couldn't have…!"

"Destroyed a heart…" Demyx articulated slowly, just as devastated as the keyblade master.

Owl proceeded to escort the girl to a large clearing in the forest, but it wasn't the tree that was significantly larger than all the others that caught her attention. It was the garden of assorted fruits and vegetables that was neatly arranged in front of the aforementioned tree. However, a few carrots seemed to be growing at a much slower rate than the rest of the batch.

"Whoever takes this garden must be a very patient person," the girl remarked.

"Indeed, our Rabbit is certainly very patient, but more often than not he has a rather short fuse," Owl replied. However, he then went on to state that his great Aunt Ophelia was very much the same, which was something that the girl had no choice but to listen to as they went up to the front door. "Ahem, Rabbit, good sir—are you there?"

After a short while, a rather meek reply came from behind the door. "Yes…I'm here." It was noticeably coated with some disdain.

"I see, I see!" Owl chuckled. "Though it is a fine day to be out and about, would it be alright if we asked to come in?"

The door slowly swung open, revealing a somewhat sorrowful yellow Rabbit with honey coating his fingers. Rabbit looked upwards at the visitor and newcomer and nodded. "Oh! You didn't bring Tigger with you! Oh yes, come right inside."

The two walked inside, with some discomfort due to the small size. The girl gazed about in wonder inside the residence. It was somewhat disorganized, with mismatched plates and food lining makeshift shelves, and dozens upon dozens of "hunny" pots scattered about. However, what surprised her most was the possibly unnaturally colored bear cub sitting by the table, looking absolutely bloated.

"Oh, Pooh bear, my good sir, it seems Rabbit invited you for lunch again?" Owl asked the bear.

"Oh yes! But I'm afraid I must go," Pooh answered in a rather enthusiastic voice. "Thank you for the lunch, Rabbit!"

"Oh, are you sure you wouldn't want some more?" Rabbit asked sarcastically.

"Do you have any?" Pooh asked in anticipation.

Rabbit looked around before sighing, "No, I'm afraid I don't."

"I see…" Pooh looked crestfallen, only to regain a smile. "Well, I shall be off then!"

Pooh tried to squeeze through a neatly dug out hole behind the table, however, with an "Oof" from the odd bear, everyone knew that he became stuck.

"Oh dear, not again…"

"Rabbit, does this happen all the time?" the girl asked, pleasantly surprised by the situation.

"Unfortunately, yes. Why I'm too polite to ask him inside every time is beyond me. Would you like some tea?"

"Oh! Hello again, Lambo!" Pooh greeted from outside. "I see you've brought your friend again!"

The girl looked at the table, wondering where she could have possibly heard that name before. Then she heard shouting outside, signifying an argument between two people. The sound started to travel around to the opposite side, where the door was.

"I'm telling you, we don't have time for this, darn cow!"

A rather small, diminutive boy that looked like a cow stumbled through the doors in tears, shouting, "But Lambo wants to have a tea party!"

Following Lambo, another boy and also a familiar face, had stumbled in after him, aggravated by the small size of everything. His teeth were clenched in annoyance, but his green eyes widened at the sight of the girl.

"Y-Yuni?"

Thank you for reading One Sky Chapter 6~! (Even though I finished, I still rushed it!)

I'm so sorry for the late update! High school is exciting and fun, but tedious and tiring at the same time! I hope you can forgive this schedule slip, as well as the ones that will inevitably come our way. Please forgive me!

Oh yes, and I decided to experiment with dark plot elements.

Please tell me what you think of this as well as other critique please!

SEE YOU AGAIN DESU~!